APA-Harare (Zimbabwe) Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa has won a second five-year term in an election slammed by the opposition and observers as flawed and not credible.
According to final presidential results announced by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) late Saturday evening, Mnangagwa secured 52.6 percent of the votes cast against 44 percent for his main rival Nelson Chamisa of the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC).
The other nine presidential candidates failed to get more than one percent of the cumulative 4.56 million votes cast during elections held on August 23-24.
However, the CCC refused to accept the election results, accusing ZEC of basing its announcement on doctored figures.
CCC spokesman Promise Mkwananzi said in a statement that the results announced by ZEC did not tally with bona fide V11 forms, which are official forms signed by respective agents for all party candidates at the end of voting at more than 12,300 polling stations last Wednesday and Thursday.
“The (ZEC announced) outcomes did not align with evidence from our V11s, a stark deviation that underscores the need for scrutiny,” Mkwananzi said.
He added: “The concerning absence of our presidential candidate’s chief election agent’s signature casts a shadow of doubt over the entire process.”
He said his party would announce the way forward over the next 24 hours.
The elections were also slammed by observers from the Southern African Development Community as lacking credibility amid allegations of voter intimidation, delays in delivery of ballot papers in opposition strongholds and the blocking of CCC campaign rallies by the police and supporters of Mnangagwa’s ZANU PF.
Meanwhile, ZANU PF also romped to victory in parallel elections for the 210-member National Assembly, amassing 136 seats against 76 for CCC. Elections for one constituency were postponed following the death of a candidate.
JN/APA